Des Moines, IA, Mar. 12--Todd Wilson can change the color of a carpet in less than a minute, according to the Ithaca New York Journal.
Beige, purple, yellow--a rainbow of colors. Actually, he has any of 16 million colors from which to choose.
His Des Moines, IA carpet-dyeing business, Color Your Carpet, has been booming since he started it almost two years ago. It's the only such business in the Midwest between Chicago and Kansas City, MO.
Wilson says he studied his craft as an apprentice under a Baltimore businessman who recently dyed carpet in the White House. After 1,600 hours of training, he opened his own business.
He can change carpet to any color a computer monitor can come up with. He can't go lighter, but he can dye straight across and darker.
The results are amazing, he says. He's seen 25-year-old shag carpet look days old after a dye job.
His customers seem to agree.
"It turned out excellent," says Thom Tuttle, who had Wilson dye his ten year old berber carpet. "He did it in one day. By the time we got home, we could walk on it. It looks as good as new."
Wilson claims his business, part of the fast-growing Color Your Carpet International franchise, is the only one that can remove urine and bleach stains from not only the carpet but also the pad. Others only wash the stains from the surface, he says.
It costs about $325 to dye a 12'x18' carpeted room and $260 to tint it a few shades darker, including labor. It costs about 50 percent to 80 percent less than buying new carpet when labor, pad, installation and removal are taken into consideration, Wilson says.
He also creates borders and runners and does stairs. "I've had people think I installed new carpet instead of dyeing it," he says. The dye sets so fast it needs only a minute to dry.
Wilson says people who choose to dye their carpets are also doing the environment a favor by increasing the longevity of the carpet. He points out that it takes years for carpet to decompose in a landfill.
